


Finding Lost Dogs

by page_runner



Category: Leverage
Genre: Family, Gen, Trust, and fixing bikes, episode: s05e06 D.B. Cooper Job, finding dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 00:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_runner/pseuds/page_runner
Summary: “Everyday, I go out and chase bad guys. Some really bad. It’s easy to see everyone that way. You could be like that too. You wouldn’t lose as many bikes.”“But I won’t find any lost dogs.”





	Finding Lost Dogs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ferociousqueak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferociousqueak/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY FEROCIOUS!!!!
> 
> Most amazingest friend (and SUPER-BETA), I know you've watched this episode enough that you can probably recite the entire thing backwards and forwards and every time you do, you cry at Todd lending out his bike in the hopes of helping a lost dog. 
> 
> Here's to seeing the best in people, both fictional and real.

The week after Todd McSweeten lost his bike, he found a dog.

A scruffy thing, probably white once upon a time, now a brown and gray smudge wriggling desperately under a bush, its collar caught fast in the branches. If he’d been riding his bike, he might have missed it. He knelt down, mindful that scared dogs sometimes bite, even if they don’t mean to, and carefully stuck out his hand for the dog to sniff. It didn’t snarl or snap, just struggled more frantically and, worried it would strangle itself, he reached in, fumbling a bit before he managed to loose the collar from the branch. The dog tumbled forward into his arms, whining and snuffling and licking his face all over.

It took some time before he got him, definitely a him, to stay still long enough to find the tags on his collar. Toby. He lived several miles away, and Todd found himself wishing for his lost bike all over again. Still, no point in dwelling on what was gone. He picked the dog up, wrinkling his nose at the smell — Toby had clearly had a few adventures — and began to walk. It wasn’t easy, keeping twenty pounds of squirming dog in his arms, and finally, he set him down, hoping Toby would just follow him, now that they were acquainted. Instead, the creature made a break for the street and Todd dove after him frantically, sacrificing skin to the sidewalk to catch him by his short, stubby tail and reel him in.

Holding onto Toby’s collar with one hand, he managed to untie his shoes and knot the laces together in an impromptu leash, which Toby happily trotted along on the end of; a perfect gentleman.

_Maybe they won't want him back._ The selfish, hopeful thought sat uncomfortably in his throat as he shuffled along in floppy sneakers, pausing frequently to let Toby sniff at whatever it was dogs found interesting enough to investigate.

“My dad investigates things too,” he told the dog. “Sometimes he helps find people who are lost or kidnapped. I want to do that too, someday.” Somehow it was easier, confessing his dream to a pair of fuzzy ears. “So don’t worry, I’ll get you home.” But Dad also found people who couldn’t go home. Whose home had people who’d made bad choices and done bad things. “I’ll keep you safe,” he amended. “If your people aren’t nice, maybe I can be your person instead.” Mom had a no dog rule, at least until he was older, but Todd felt older now, and if he already had the dog...

_That’s putting the cart before the horse_ , his dad would say, so Todd tucked the thought away into a small dark corner and simply enjoyed Toby, trotting alongside him.

 

He found the house; large and neat, aside from the disheveled flowerbed in front — Todd gave Toby the benefit of the doubt — and a surprised, slightly shrill woman opened the door with an immediately, joyful cry of “TOBY!!” He brushed aside his unfair tingle of disappointment and grinned as the dog leapt into her arms, whining in happiness. The woman captured him firmly under her elbow with the ease of long practice.

“Thank you so much, young man, I take it you saw my rescue signs?”

“I—”

“My husband said it was hopeless, that he’s such a foolish dog and a champion purebred Westie to boot, so who’s going to return him, when they could get so much more for him, but I _had_ to hope someone would return him, even for such a _measly_ reward…” she ducked behind the door, and returned, shoving a ten dollar bill in Todd’s face. “Here, take it!”

Todd swallowed. He didn’t want her money, but Toby was struggling again and the lady kept waving the bill until he took it, protesting in futility as she thanked him again and shut the door before her purebred champion could run off again. Maybe he could leave the money on the welcome mat? But that would probably be rude, so he stuffed it in his pocket, and went home for dinner to get some advice.

 

“So what do I do with the money, Dad?” Todd asked, as they sat around the table. All three of them for once, even if Mom had to keep their plates warm in the oven for a while. That was okay, since Dad made it home for dinner in the end, and he’d left his briefcase full of files on the coffee table. Todd caught him glancing at it every now and then. But Dad listened as he told him about the dog and the lady and the money that still sat, burning a hole in his pocket.

Mom frowned and ducked her head under the table. “Todd, your shoelaces! You couldn’t ask for them back?”

_Mom should investigate things too. She never misses details._ “Sorry mom, I forgot. Dad? The money?”

“Well, it’s yours, son. You found the dog and returned it. You earned the money.”

“But I didn’t do it for the reward! I didn’t even know there was a reward!”

“Sometimes your actions can lead to good things just falling out of the sky. That’s the great thing about life.” He studied Todd for a moment. “Why don’t you buy a new bike with it?" he suggested. “Just be careful who you lend it to this time.”

Mom smiled at both of them. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

 

The next day, Todd went out to buy a bike. He almost didn’t see the yard sale, too busy studying the yarn his mom had threaded through the holes of his sneakers. “Just until I can get down to the store and pick up some new ones,” she’d told him, with that smile she always used when he’d had something taken from him, or he’d lost it. He saw that smile a lot.

A bike sat at the end of the driveway, a beat up, dented thing, peppered in scratches and spots of rust. A man, sitting in a lawn chair further back in his carport stood up. “You lookin’ at the bike?”

Todd nodded, because he was looking at the bike, that much was true. But, his old bike, the one Mom and Dad insisted Santa gave him, had been a lot nicer. “How much is it?”

The man shrugged. “How much you got?”

He dug out the ten. The man smiled and it wasn’t the same smile his mom gave him earlier, but it made Todd feel somewhat similar, all hot and aware he’d done something wrong. “Is it enough? It’s all I have.”

The man sucked his teeth, thinking it over. “Sure kid, I can strike a deal for ten.” He held out his hand and Todd shook it seriously, before realizing the man just wanted him to hand over the money. He did, feeling foolish.

The bike’s tires went flat about two blocks away and the chain kept grinding and slipping. Todd had a feeling his mom was going to give him that smile again, or maybe the more serious version, where her eyes went all dark and worried.

But Mom wasn’t home when he got back to their house. Instead, Steve, Dad’s partner, sat on the front steps, slouched forward in a position both stiff and limp, like the flat tires on Todd’s bike.

“Hey kid, I've got something to tell you,” Steve said, and Todd knew something was very wrong. It must have showed on his face because Steve stood and held up his hands quickly. “Your dad’s alive, and he’s gonna be okay. I just took your ma to the hospital while they have him in surgery, and she asked me to wait with you.”

“Wh-what happened?” 

Steve lifted his shoulders in something like a shrug, the movement continuing slightly through his body and Todd couldn’t help but think of Toby, constantly wriggling. Steve didn’t wriggle exactly, but there’d always been a restless energy about him, and it seemed worse now. “We—we were chasing a bad guy…” he trailed off, then straightened and steadied, “He’s been shot, but your dad’s tough, he’ll be fine, you hear me?”

Todd could hear him, sure, but he sounded far away, muted by the roaring fear inside him. His hands tightened around the handlebars to keep from falling.

“What you got there?” He hadn’t noticed Steve move, but he was kneeling in front of Todd now, his hand resting on the flat front tire, eyes locked on Todd’s face.

“A-a bike. I bought it at a yard sale...it doesn’t matter. I want to see my dad!”

“You will. Just not yet, he’s still in surgery, like I said.” Steve broke eye contact to study the bike. “How much you pay for it?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Ten—Kid, this thing ain’t worth ten cents!”

“I can fix it!” he shouted, louder than he intended, and he wasn’t even sure if he could fix it, only aware of all the things he couldn’t fix, too huge and horrible to think about or ignore.

“You ever fix up a bike?” Steve smiled at Todd and it wasn’t quite his mom’s smile, or the man’s smile, but it had a similar flavor. He missed his dad, who didn’t smile when Todd made a mistake, but just talked him through it, sure and steady.

Todd bit his lip, eyes hot and stinging with unspilled tears, not trusting himself to speak.

“C’mon,” Steve said, placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder and judiciously ignoring Todd’s angry swipes across his eyes. “Let’s work on it while we wait.”

 

“You can tell me what happened,” Todd said as he scrubbed at patches of rust. Steve was working to get the chain off, so they could clean it properly. ( _“When it’s gunked up like that, it don’t nestle into the teeth right.”_ )

“I told ya already.” (“ _Will it?”_ )

“Not how it happened.” ( _“Sure, with a bit of elbow grease and patience.”_ ) “I promise I won’t cry.” He’s pretty sure the thought of him crying scared Steve more than his partner getting shot, which didn’t make sense, until Todd thought about his mom crying at the hospital, and then it made all the sense in the world.

Steve sat back on his heels with a sigh. He had a smudge of grease across one cheek, and Todd found looking at it easier than directly into the man’s sharp gaze. “We were chasing a bad guy. I saw him, called out a tally — uh, a tally is—”

“It’s like tally ho, right? Pilots say it — it means ‘target in sight’.” He coughed to clear the lump in his throat. Dad taught him that. It was their special word. He couldn't decide how he felt about his dad using it with Steve. 

“Yeah. Your dad picked it up in the war. I did too, so we use it—anyway, I called a tally ho, and your dad got to him first, and thought he could talk him down.”

He said it calm and clipped, a factual report of events that told Todd everything and nothing. Of course his dad tried to talk to the bad guy. He didn’t see people as only bad. He gave them choices. “It didn’t work?”

“Might have, eventually. He had a partner I didn’t spot. Tally _two_. Got the jump on him.”

“Where were you?”

“Not where I shoulda been.” A bitter confession; not the type of thing an adult had ever said to him. “They took off and I came runnin’ up too late to chase ‘em, not-not with your dad…”

Todd bent to the task of scrubbing away another patch of rust before he answered, “You saved him though. You got there in time to save him.”

“You sure about that?” Steve’s voice sounded thick.

He looked up. Steve wasn’t crying, though he probably should have been. “You promised me that he was going to be okay. Were you telling me the truth?”

The nod Steve gave him was solemn, weighted by those intense eyes of his. “I keep my promises.”

“And I trust you to tell me the truth. So… yeah. I’m sure about that.”

Steve huffed out something approximating a laugh. “Kid, you are your father’s son, that’s for damn sure. He always thinks too much of people.” He turned to settling the cleaned up chain back in place, leaving Todd to wonder why Steve thought he should think less of him. “Let’s patch up these tires and see how she rides.”

The bike was turning smooth by the time he and Steve got the call to come to the hospital. His dad was out of surgery and would be waking up soon. Todd’s mom sounded tired but relieved on the phone. “He’ll want to see you, first thing when he wakes up.”

 

At the door of the hospital room, Steve paused, until Todd took his hand and pulled him forward, over the threshold. Inside, he forgot about Steve, forgot about the bike, forgot about yarn for shoelaces, and smiles that meant too many things. His dad was a limp, pale figure on the bed, his mom sitting next to him. She touched his arm, before standing to make her way over to Todd, hugging him to her, tightly. All around, machines stood guard, making his dad seem even smaller, more fragile.

Dad’s eyes blinked open slowly, searching for a moment before they spotted Todd and he smiled, lifting his finger to spinning it in a slow circle. “Tally ho, son.”

“Tally ho, dad,” Todd whispered back, and spun his finger in the air.


End file.
